


Near Misses

by rentgirl2



Series: Whitebread Universe [2]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Post TSbyBS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:31:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rentgirl2/pseuds/rentgirl2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Companion piece to Whitebread.)<br/>Blair ponders on their near miss at love.  "Sometimes a person has to remember everything he's learned and forget everything he's been taught so he can take a stand."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Near Misses

His letter arrived two days ago.

I generally don't consider myself a coward. If anything, I tend to err on the side of foolhardy bravado, but from the minute I took the envelope out of my mail slot at the SPD, I've been afraid.

After all that had gone down between Jim and me, the happiness and the hurt, the hope and the despair, I still carry a piece of the dream with me. Maybe I'm the only one who knows it and maybe it diminishes a little every day, but it's still my dream and I am not ready to let it go. It is all I have left of us.

I understand the words inside this letter, the words that would be meticulously printed in Jim's even, precise handwriting potentially have the power to take away what little I have managed to salvage.

So, I took it to my apartment and left it unopened on the kitchen counter.

Where I could see it and obsess.

Totally stupid, Sandburg, I admonish myself. Could it be any worse than it already is? Anyway, Jim hadn't tried to contact me in months. There is every possibility whatever is in that note is important. I talk myself in and out of reading it a hundred times.

I've had a long day, hell, a long week at work. The last thing I want to do is face up to whatever is in Jim's missive, but enough was enough.

Grabbing a water from the fridge and the letter from the counter top, I plop down on the sofa. Placing the letter on the coffee table, I decide to relax for a while and savor my could-have-beens with Jim for what might be the last time.

***

I learned a lot from Naomi.

Some of the things I watched her do when I was a kid totally impressed me. I saw, I admired, I emulated. Her openness, her enthusiasm, her optimism, her willingness to try the new and different, these were traits any child would be proud to see in a parent.

Other times, I watched her do something that made me pause and decide I would avoid making that a part of my life.

Like the way she ended her relationships.

My mom is an attractive woman now; she was stunning when I was growing up. Drop dead gorgeous with a kind and compassionate heart. There were plenty of men who were mesmerized by Naomi Ruth Sandburg. There still are.

She has a way of focusing her attention on a person so that he feels as though he is the sun in her solar system. That trait was one I definitely studied and added to my repertoire.

Naomi was more than willing to be the object of a man's love and desire, but I don't ever remember her being crazy about a man in return. She told me she had a few near misses, but the only man she would ever love completely was me.

Anyway, she enjoyed being loved and pampered and catered to.

In return, for a while at least, she gave a man monogamy, nurturing, and, judging from the sounds that emanated from her bedroom, passion. These, too, were traits I picked up and ran with.

Well, maybe not the monogamy. I was more into serial monogamy. With really short chapters.

My mom is slow to anger and quick to forgive. I'm the same. It's not that we're anyone's doormat; it's more like believing in the best of people.

If anyone was really shitty to Naomi, she would say stuff like, "There must be so much sadness in his soul," or, "It has to be difficult to carry the burden of a hard childhood." She was ready and willing to look beyond the bad behavior to see the innate goodness in a person.

Naomi's Pollyanna attitude toward her fellow man was a trait I sucked up early and it's served me well.

I spent many school years being the youngest, smallest and smartest in my class. Luckily, I was fast enough with my mouth and my feet to avoid most ass-whippings, but I could have easily grown up to be a hostile, bitter bastard.

Instead, with Naomi's rose-colored glasses firmly planted on the tip of my nose, I was able to see the potential goodness in even my worst tormentors.

Never did that Good Ship Lollipop outlook on people come in more handy than it did when Blair Sandburg crashed into the orbit of James Ellison.

He was a tough nut to crack, Detective Ellison was. The first time I met him the anger was radiating off him in waves. He had something I wanted, though, namely a chance to study him, so I persisted. Still, a regular guy, one not trained to sugar-coat even the baddest of bad asses, might have been a little put off by a big, pissed off cop.

Oh, but not Blair Sandburg. I heard Naomi in my head saying, "It must grate on a proud man to feel out of control." Made sense to me.

The second time tornado Jim surged into my life and hurled me to the wall, I looked into his eyes and actually saw what my mom had been talking about. It was all there: confusion, fear, hurt.

I could have offered him compassion but I knew if I let my gentle nature make an appearance, Ellison would have left me flat on the floor, my dissertation a hopeless cause.

Luckily, Naomi had prepared me for the very moment I'd found myself pinned like a butterfly between the hard corners of my bookshelf and heated muscles of Jim Ellison's physical strength.

The casual observer would have tagged Naomi's family as nice and middle class. From the inside though, it was as dysfunctional as every other family in America.

Mom was the only girl, the youngest of three. Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Irving were a couple of cool customers. I know they cared about me, but I always sensed they were sizing me up, trying to decipher my lineage, as well as just what the fuck made me tick. Naomi says they're merely a product of their poor, European upbringing. She is such a Mary Sunshine.

For all the professed tolerance of her folks, we didn't spend much time with them. I guess Naomi found the weight of their judgment a little heavy to bear. She never seemed to go out of her way to please them, but she didn't exactly pique their ire, either.

She had a huge argument with Grandpa when I was eight. I don't know what was said, but from then on, Naomi made sure I went to Hebrew School. I haven't made a lot of return visits to the synagogue since I was thirteen and bar mitzphaed, but as a kid I was raised up in the way of the Lord.

Anyway, whenever the family got together, I'd try to wrap my head around the fact that we were the fruit of Ruth and Irving's vineyard. The looks were there, yeah, but the basic spark wasn't. It was like wild flowers had grown out of a glacier or a nest full of cardinals had been hatched by pigeons. Just not much of a fit.

When I was seventeen, Naomi came to me at Rainier. She was totally coming unglued. Uncle Jacob had called her--Grandma Ruth had died. We left on the red eye and hit New York City the next morning.

When we got to the family brownstone, Uncle Jacob was there along with Uncle Ira, his wife and their two boys. My grandfather was, in his eminent fashion, being a total dick. He was busy berating them and they were busy cowering and running for cover. Years of dysfunction coming to fruition before my eyes.

Naomi, who'd been quietly weeping on my shoulder for twelve hours and a couple of thousand miles, took charge.

Her eyes dried up and her spine snapped straight as Irving started on us. "The world traveler and her son finally grace us with their presence, I see. Too late to see Ruth draw her last breath or help with any arrangements, but I suppose we're to be happy they're here at all."

She absently patted my arm and hauled her dad into the back of the house.

We stood in shock as their raised voices reached us. Fifteen minutes later, a subdued, broken-hearted old man mourned his wife along with his family.

On our flight back to Cascade, I asked her what she'd said to Grandpa to turn him into a human being.

"Sweetie, your Grandpa was in terrible pain. He just couldn't let his emotions out. I helped him find a way."

"By yelling at him?"

She laughed. "No, Blair. Yelling rarely helps. Your Grandpa couldn't stop being angry and hurt. He couldn't stop acting out his understanding of what strength was until there was someone there tough enough for him to lean on."

"He needed you to stand up to him before he could break down." Hey, I was a smart kid.

"Exactly. Sometimes a person is unable to lay down his burden unless someone else has enough strength to pick it up."

That day in Hargrove Hall, Jim Ellison didn't need sweet words and empathy. He needed an ally smart enough and tough enough to help shoulder his secret.

When he pushed me that afternoon, I pushed back. When he raised his voice, I raised mine. When he bared his teeth and beat his chest, I followed suit.

Naomi was right. He backed down, calmed down and, a near-fatal truck accident later, he begrudgingly let me help carry his load.

The pattern would be repeated, minus the truck, over and over again in our time together.

Another thing people don't get about my mom is that beneath her flowing caftan and new age lingo beats the heart of one of the shrewdest women in North America.

She might affect a spacey persona, heck, she might actually be kind of spacey, but she has a sharp, insightful, somewhat calculating brain.

She's had to. Years of living by her wits, of stretching her dollars until they screamed for mercy, had trained her to see the possibilities in a situation. She had a high school education, next to nothing in job skills, and an illegitimate son, yet she managed well.

It's not like she's a gold-digger; she just knows how to work the angles. Something I learned at a very early age. "Use your assets," was an oft-repeated mantra in the Sandburg household. Along with that came a warning to let others see what they wanted to see if it was to your advantage.

So I did.

I'm cute. Not gorgeous like Jim or Naomi, but damn cute. I've been flashing my big blues to get my way since I was a toddler.

I'm small. Not munchkin tiny, but small enough to be a little wary at times. I've been giving the palms up, self-depreciating-smile-and-shrug for a long time. There's no reason to let an aggressive prick know right off that I can be a dangerous little fucker, right?

Yeah, the ability to come off as young, adorable, non-threatening and naive has served me well. Even people who know me, who know I'm intelligent and very educated, who know I'm capable of surviving in the wilderness in mega harsh conditions, are still taken in by the old helpless act. They rush to protect me.

Use your assets.

When my place blew up and burned down, I turned my assets on Jim. After I'd flashed my big blues and given him my helpless, naive look, the man practically swooped down to rescue me.

It was all I could do not to laugh.

I'd wanted to move in with him from day one. Honestly, I totally wanted to get into his pants or let him get into mine, but that's not why I wanted my own key to his loft. I figured living with Jim was the only way I'd ever get him to open up to me completely.

I'd already been his ride-along for a couple of weeks. He had shared a little with me but nowhere near the extent I'd needed to write my dissertation. I was only managing to grab a few stray hours with him here and there.

If we lived in the same space, we'd quadruple the amount of time we spent together. I'd have plenty of opportunities to catch him with his guard down and get a good look at the man and the Sentinel under the tough exterior.

Seriously, no one, no matter how much control he exerts over himself, can maintain party manners after a sixteen-hour shift. Nope. Once he hits the door of home-sweet-home, the shell of civilization is shucked off and the real man appears.

It's not like I planned to lose half my stuff and my home of two years that night, but, as the warehouse lay in ruins and it was all a done deal, my reptilian brain decided, why not maneuver to obtain the best possible outcome?

I knew once I got my foot in Jim's door, I'd find a way to stay. After all, I'd seen Naomi do it enough times and she was so fucking good at it.

People would open their homes to us, thinking it was their own idea. By the time we left, they were crying and begging us to come back soon.

I definitely moved into Jim's place because of my dissertation but I'm not a total mercenary. I planned on helping him, too. He was completely frazzled and at the end of his rope when I found him in the hospital. I had confidence I could teach him control.

The possibility of watching him run around the loft in his underwear was purely icing on the cake.

I wiggle-wormed, shucked and jived and used every presto-change-o slight of hand in my vast bag-of-tricks. Before Jim could utter, "When did I lose control of my life?" I was in. In his home, in his job, in his fucking breathing space.

I liked it.

Fuck, why hedge? I loved it.

In true Sandburg fashion, I had Ellison convinced he needed me. I'm not saying he didn't, but probably not as much as he thought he did.

Actually, I was shocked when I discovered not only how deeply he believed he needed me, but how early in our relationship he'd come to that conclusion. Simon Banks inadvertently let me in on it about a year ago.

Now, I've never made it easy for Simon. To some extent I resented him from our first meeting. He was Jim's boss and I knew I had to turn on the charm. I put on my humble, harmless persona as I leaned into his office that first morning, attempting to finagle an observer's pass.

He looked at me like a roach he'd found in his shrimp fried rice.

I have hated that fucking look since I was a kid. You don't have Naomi Sandburg for a mother without garnering a few rude glances. She was a master at doling out punishment to those who dared to throw their thinly veiled hostility our way.

"Kill them with kindness, Sweetie," she advised. "And subtly tweak their sorry asses."

I was ready for Simon. I'd been on the receiving end of his variety of scowling from self-important, thick-necked bullies starting back in kindergarten.

Simon's gaze hit me and all he saw was some anti-establishment, egg-headed hippy.

So, I killed him with kindness and tweaked his sorry ass at every opportunity. I called him by his first name. I pretended to study during meetings at the PD. I helped myself to his coffee and did a little tabletop lounging in his office.

Nothing overt, nothing he could complain to Jim about without coming across as a pompous butthead. I was careful to make sure Jim only saw me smiling, nodding and trying to help.

Still, I was dicking with Simon and he knew it. And he knew that I knew that he knew that I knew it.

It wasn't till Jim and I saved Simon's bacon in Peru that some type of unspoken truce was reached. Things weren't all smooth as glass between us because, well, in many ways I was an anti-establishment, egg-headed hippy, but we did find some friendly footing.

We had another brief struggle for stasis in our relationship when I graduated from the academy. I had to learn to see Simon not only as my friend but as my immediate superior and he had to switch gears and see me as a fully functioning, honest-to-goodness cop.

About a month after I'd come on the force full-time, Jim was tied up in court and Simon asked me out to lunch. I was surprised. Although Jim and Simon occasionally did things together without me, Simon and I never hung out without Jim.

I was surprised but pleased and jumped on the invitation. We hit an Ethiopian place two blocks from the station.

I'd tried to talk Jim into eating there a couple of times but he'd refused. He said living in Peru had provided him with ample opportunities to sit on the ground and eat with his bare hands. I figured I'd change his mind about floor-and-finger-dining eventually.

Anyway, Simon and I were eating and talking about this and that: Daryl's latest adventure as a college freshman, a current case at the PD, the Jags kicking ass this season, when Simon said something that knocked the wind out of me.

"You're doing a hell of a good job, Sandburg," he told me, dipping into our shared bowl of herbed couscous.

Clearing the food from my throat, I said, "Ah, thanks, Captain."

"I had my doubts in the beginning." He must have caught the stunned look on my face. "Not the start of the academy, Blair. I would never have put my reputation or the reputation of the department at risk if I hadn't believed you would do us all proud."

It was all I could do to keep from squirming in my seat. Thirty years old and I still wasn't sure how to handle praise. My mom singing my virtues, I dealt with easily. I mean, your mom has to love you, right?

I've taken plenty of psychology classes. I understand the lack of a dad plays with my head a little. My upbringing was filled with love and security but not much in the line of male approval. I craved it. Jesus, I've searched for it from grade school to graduate school, in every teacher, coach, and mentor I could find. Yeah, I craved it, but it still made me uncomfortable.

"Oh. Thanks, Captain." I shoveled some bread in my mouth so I wouldn't be tempted to babble.

"Way back during the David Lash case, I talked to Jim about cutting you loose."

Pushing the flat bread to one side of my mouth and the pang of hurt to the back of my mind, I asked, "You did?"

"Yes." He gave me an apologetic smile. "You have to remember, you and I weren't exactly getting along then. There was a leak to the press happening that I was incorrectly attributing to you, and you did help Lash get away at the church. The bottom line for me was that you weren't one of us."

I blushed a little. No, I hadn't been one of them and I had made some major fuck-ups during the case. The leak wasn't me, but it could have been. I'd been giving my then-current squeeze, Christine, way too much information.

"Ellison wouldn't hear of it, though. Said you couldn't possibly be the informant and he took the blame for the screw-up at the church." Simon shook his head at the memory. "He said you were the only one who understood what he was going through and he needed the support you were giving him. I didn't get it then." Simon lowered his voice. "I guess I wasn't really ready to accept all the ramifications of Jim being a Sentinel."

"It's a lot to accept. Hell, Jim didn't want to accept it himself."

"Your partner can be a stubborn son-of-a-bitch, I'll give you that." He finished his tea before he spoke again. "He might not have wanted to accept all the stuff being a Sentinel entails, but he realized you were all tangled up in it."

We ordered dessert, dates dipped in honey and almonds, and never mentioned Jim again.

My view of the past Jim and I had shared changed that afternoon.

He'd stood up for me.

I know it makes me sound like a total dork, but the knowledge he was my defender way back then, way back when I wasn't really thinking of myself as a friend of his, warmed me.

Against Simon, a man he knew and trusted, Jim had stood up for me.

Probably against his own good judgment, Ellison had been my Saint Michael. I couldn't understand it. During that particular point in our history, I'd been a liability to him but he chose to defend me.

Why? Five years ago he had to have known I wouldn't leave him high and dry with the Sentinel thing. Jesus, I'd reminded him often enough of how everything between us related back to my dissertation. We both understood I wasn't going anywhere until he had control and I had my Ph.D.

Not to mention, I was living with the guy. I wasn't making any plans to head out.

It wasn't enough for him, though. He'd wanted to keep me on the job with him, too. That hadn't changed a bit. Apparently, he'd wanted me with him as much as possible and had for a long, long time.

That lunchtime conversation Simon and I shared wouldn't get out of my head. I turned it over and around and inside out. I matched Simon's words up against Jim's actions over the last five years and finally came to a different conclusion.

Maybe, just maybe, he wanted me.

Maybe, just maybe, I'd allowed myself to be blinded to the bigger possibilities.

I'd followed Naomi's teaching to a tee from the moment I'd met Jim. My goal had been to muscle my way into a great situation. Using every trick I knew, I 'd made sure my relationship with Jim was mutually beneficial. I'd been helpful on his job and off. Not only was I working to get his, as he called it, Sentinel-thing under control, but I was typing up reports at the PD and covering household chores like cooking and errand running.

I was helpful all right and I was also helping myself. Not only was I collecting data for my paper, but the rent I was handing over to Jim every month was, while adequate, nowhere near the eight hundred and fifty a month plus utilities I'd been laying out for my now defunct warehouse digs.

Jim's place was very cool, very convenient and very cheap. It was also quiet. I had plenty of private time at the loft, if not for sex, then for studying. The fear of a late grant or stipend check disappeared. My roommate made sure water, heat and electric ran twenty-four-seven regardless of the state of my finances.

There was always something to eat in the fridge and a weekly laundry run. It was like living with my mom but with more rules.

It wasn't long before Jim and I were actually friends, though. Somewhere around the time Maya tried to run my heart through a blender, I realized Jim was a real friend. The best friend I've ever had.

He and I had plenty of good times. We camped or fished or headed to a Jags' game or just bullshitted around the loft.

He and I had plenty of shitty times. We didn't always talk when we should have and sure as hell didn't always listen when we should have. Alex and the diss come to mind, but that's all beside the point.

The point is, after Simon and I talked that wet spring day, I pulled out my memories, good and bad, wonderful and painful, and tried viewing them objectively, scientifically. Honestly.

Had I let Naomi's survivalistic, passive-aggressive, basically mercenary-cum-optimistic-flower-child slant on life keep me from seeing what was right in front of me?

Several years ago, Jim had to face up to yet another hurtful moment in his pain-filled past. Seems Jim missed an opportunity to save his partner, Jack Pendergrast, from being murdered because he was busy doing the nasty with Pendergrast's girlfriend. I try not to judge, but that particular tidbit totally freaked me out. The incident was so not what I'd come to expect from Jim. Funny, too, how the fact that he'd fucked around in the past, the idea he could be so cavalier about loyalty, would rise up later to bite us in the ass.

Anyway, we needed information about the night of his indiscretion and Jim was blocking it. I'd told him I believed people could reprocess their memories and he could find what we needed if he tried. I had been flying by the seat of my pants with that screwball theory, but what the fuck, right? I asked Jim to replay his night with Emily through the awareness of a Sentinel.

Miracle of miracles, he was actually able to do it. Score one for the Shaman of the Great City.

I wondered if I could score again. Slowly, carefully, with Simon's revelation about Jim in my hand, I picked through the mazes and mine fields of our life together and came up with a conclusion that pleased me very much.

Perhaps, I started to believe, my secret hope, my illicit hidden dream could come true. Perhaps the feelings I had struggled to neither reveal to Jim nor acknowledge to myself, were returned.

Perhaps Jim wanted more than my friendship.

Now, being a Sandburg, I've flirted with love a time or fifty. Women often, men more selectively.

I loved sex but I don't think I'd ever been in love. Like my mom, all I'd had were a couple of near misses. Maya came close. Still, I'm not sure if that relationship would have panned out even if every damn thing in the universe hadn't been stacked against us.

Like my mom, I'd been the recipient of a more than a few professions of undying devotion, but I'd never given one of my own. I wasn't really positive if I knew how.

I understood how to give the appearance of loving someone. I was considerate. I was attentive. I was affectionate. Well, as long as I was actually, physically with the person. I've always been an out-of-sight-out-of-mind sort of guy.

Until Jim.

While trying to find a foothold in his life, I wanted to make both of our lives a little easier by finding things to make him more comfortable with his senses. I brought him stuff like herbal remedies and natural, light-scented cleansers. Mostly, I did it to show him he needed me. Another Sandburg deception, I suppose.

Later, it hit me I was spending time searching for softer linens and organically grown wheat not because I wanted to deceive him, but because I wanted to please him. At first, I'd presented the new items to him with a great deal of fanfare. I wanted him to say, "Good job, Sandburg," and realize there was a totally unexpected upside to letting me live in the loft, go to the PD and study him.

As time went on, I discovered I was always on the look out for items that could not only soothe his senses and make his life less stressful, but that could delight his senses and make his life pleasant.

I no longer gifted him with these prizes like a treasure from a quest. I replaced our detergent without saying a word. Our new and improved triple milled hand soap made its way to the bathroom sink quietly. Febreze silently took over Glade's job.

Sometimes he noticed and commented. Sometimes he didn't.

It ceased to matter to me if I was showered with praise and credit. The knowledge I was helping him was enough.

That was so unlike me I should have suspected.

In my defense, the only love I'd ever been a party to was of the familial variety. The mother/son, grandparent/grandson, uncle/nephew type. I had no experience with the heart-to-heart, I'll-never-leave-you kind.

I'd watched my grandparents, but there wasn't much in that union that had anything to do with romantic love. Ruth and Irving had a keen grasp of duty and obligation. Love and tenderness didn't factor in.

Naomi played at love. Although there was plenty of joy and laughter, no underlying currents of the serious, forever stuff was around.

I had a feeling Jim knew plenty about duty and obligation and seriousness, but not much about playful and joyous.

So, after Simon and I talked, after I'd shuffled my deck of memories into a hand worth gambling on, I began my vigil. I watched. I waited.

The summer I turned seven, Naomi and I lived just outside Birmingham, Alabama. August days in the Deep South simmer. The sun left me limp, wanting to do little more than lay in the shadows and suck on Kool-Aide that had been frozen solid in Tupperware Popsicle molds.

When the sun went down, though, it was a different world. Naomi would drag a lounge chair out to the back yard and watch me play off my energy.

The nights were heavy with humidity and smelled like ripe blackberries and magnolias. It was here, against the soft, blue-black evening air, I saw my first lightening bug.

I was utterly fascinated. My mom must have told me a thousand times fireflies were insects, not Tinker Bell-like fairies, but I didn't believe her.

Empty jelly-jar in hand, I probably ran a hundred miles that summer trying, unsuccessfully, to catch a lightening bug. I was convinced if I captured one, I could make friends with it. I was sure if the lightening bug and I talked, I would make wishes and he would grant them. We'd make magic together.

I ran through our backyard and the backyards of our neighbors until the first frost came along and the lightening bugs disappeared. Naomi and I had moved on before they glowed again the following summer.

I had that same childlike, tingling feeling about Jim. If I could capture him, just for a moment, I knew I could convince him to let us make magic together.

I'd possessed an inordinate amount of patience at seven years old. By the time I hit thirty, I was a fucking rock, willing to wait when a normal, rational man would have packed up and headed for greener pastures.

Have I mentioned that Sandburgs are stubborn? It might have taken years to open my eyes to the possibility Jim could be mine, but there I stood, jelly-jar in hand, ready to seize the most precious, most fascinating thing I'd ever come across in my life.

When it finally happened, I nearly fucked it up.

Jim and I were alone in the PD break room, getting ready to sit down and eat lunch. I was talking and he was pretending to listen. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

It was different though. I mean, he might not have been processing the words I was saying, but he was totally paying attention to me. He was studying my face. Weird, strangely flattering, but weird. Like he just couldn't take his eyes off me.

"Jim?" I said.

He leaned down and kissed me. Not a I'm-going-to-fuck-your-brains-out-so-get-ready kiss, rather, a I-can't-help-myself-I-have-to-taste-you kiss.

That's when I almost screwed up. See, even though I'd been positive he'd eventually come to me, I hadn't really believed it. I'd been positive I'd catch a lightening bug, too, and that had never happened.

For a minute, maybe more like a split second, I stilled in shock.

Then triumph coursed through me and I kissed him back. He couldn't get enough.

Bingo. My own lightening bug and I hadn't even chased him across the meadow and most of the summer. Nope, a mere five years and he came to me willingly.

From that point on, I had to wing it. Naomi's teachings, her guidelines, had no meaning for me. This wasn't something temporary, something to hold onto until the next better thing came along.

Jesus, this was Jim. There was nothing better tooling down the pike, ever. He was the best.

That first kiss, combined with the slightly bemused, lusty look on Jim's face as we broke apart, was like tequila in my belly. I felt flushed and supremely cocky.

Yeah, Jim Ellison was most definitely hot for me.

I wanted to do a little rooster strut through the bullpen. I wanted to hang out a window and shout like a fishwife of my unbelievably good fortune. I wanted to push Jim to his knees and let him suck me dry.

Of course, I did none of these. The possibility Jim would freak out or backpedal or apologize loomed ominously. So, I tried to keep it light and easy the rest of the afternoon.

Hitting college, and the dorm in particular, when you're a nerdy sixteen-year-old is a bitch of an experience. The first couple of months that I lived in Broward Hall, my only friend was a beat-up orange cat that lived near the dumpster pad behind the cafeteria. It took two weeks of coaxing before she let me feed her and another two weeks before she let me touch her.

Jim had the same air about him: hopeful, wary, and feral. One wrong move and I knew he'd scurry away and our chance would be lost.

Poised on the edge of such an important precipice, I damn well wasn't going to let either one of us blow it.

I spent the day gentling him, as if he truly were some wild animal. I acted as though it were just another day. I pretended to be engrossed first in paperwork and later in an impromptu meeting Simon gave after his conference with the mayor.

We rode home together in the truck, talking trash about everyday life things.

By the time we walked into the loft, I was a humming, high-strung mass of horniness.

I figured Jim had probably run our earlier kiss and conversation though his brain a couple of dozen times on the elevator ride up. I figured he'd probably dreamed up a couple of dozen scenarios to explain away what had transpired in the break room. Then I figured out a way to keep him from uttering much more than my name.

Seconds after he'd closed the door to the apartment, I had his pants down and his hard dick in my mouth.

With little more than his whispered "Blair," and a few skilled swipes of my tongue, Jim was shooting. Deciding not to let him think too much yet, I led him up the stairs to his bedroom.

Not to sound completely immodest, but I'd taken on many lovers before I had finally managed to crawl between Jim Ellison's sheets. I'd done the deed in almost every way and every place imaginable. I've fucked and been fucked by the accomplished and the damned near innocent.

I've had the hot, wet, sweaty fucks and the light-hearted, sweet screws and everything in between. I've done the straight thing and the gay thing and dabbled in the three-way kinky thing.

What I'm trying to say is, I went into Jim's bed thinking I'd pretty much done it all.

The basic mechanics were the same. The insert tab A into slot B was unchanged. The basic mechanics were the only similarities, however.

If I were Catholic, I'd have to say being intimate with Jim was like going to communion.

Does that make any sense at all? It was, well, like sacred. Yeah, like a sacrament. Sure, it was satisfyingly hot and the closest thing to a prayer I uttered our first time was, "Jesus, Jim, fuck me harder," and "My God, Jim, you feel so good," but I swear I got religion that night in Jim's big bed.

I was transformed, transported and transfigured.

Sex was sex, I'd believed before, and this was certainly sex. Amazing, wonderful, steal-your-heartbeat-and-beg-to-do-it-again sex. It was all of that, but so much more.

Sex, according to my vast experience, was flesh pressing into flesh and warm moisture being shared and veins pulsating with fire.

Sex, in what I now realized was my very limited experience, was about rubbing and caressing and pulling. Sex entailed licking and suckling and stroking and touching.

Sex was filled with moaning and sweet nothings and filthy suggestions. Sex was, ultimately, the striving and pumping and pushing to completion. It was all about finally reaching the place where pain and pleasure are less than a hair's breadth apart and when they bleed into each other, white light bursts like a super nova, leaving lovers floating and satiated.

That was sex, I thought. That was all and that was enough.

I was wrong.

What I'd been missing all those other times with all those other lovers was the incredible spirituality of sex. Nothing and no one had ever hinted to me there was even a remote possibility that the spiritual side of sex existed. Or if they had, I'd chosen not to believe in it.

I never suspected two people could be so completely in tune with one another during sex.

No, I'm not talking about orgasms, although Jim and I were having absolutely no problems in that department. Jesus, my dick was shooting like a fire hose and so was his. We laughed about it.

"God, Chief," he'd told me one night, mere seconds after pumping me full, "I hurt from coming so much."

"Well, man, I guess that's just a side effect of old age." I refused to admit to him there were days when my cock actually throbbed in pain from repeated stimulation. I finally had him where I wanted him and I wasn't about to give him an excuse to change his mind.

No, I'm not talking about being on the same wavelength physically, even though it was never better than it had been with Jim. I'm referring to the soul-deep connection we shared back then.

There was this peace between us. It was as if our fantastic physical relationship and the emotions we shared had given us an oasis to draw strength from.

We never talked about it, it just was. Jim wasn't much of a talker, especially when it came to our relationship, and I, it shames me to admit, didn't completely appreciate the once-in-a-lifetime preciousness of what we had until it was gone.

I understood enough to use it at the time, though.

When things were going like shit at work, for example, and I just wanted to slam something into the wall, I'd sneak a glance at Jim and think, "Fucking A. He's mine." I'd recall the various things we'd done to each other the night before. Usually, he'd catch me looking and smile like he knew exactly what I was thinking. Warmth and contentment would shoot through me. I'd dip into that pool of calm we'd somehow created and whatever had sucked at work just didn't seem so important anymore.

After Jim and I had been lovers for a couple of weeks, I'd run into an old girlfriend from my university days. Molly and I had been pretty tight at one time and parted friends. That girl was one amazing kisser.

I'd been doing a little shopping at a bookstore not far from Rainier when she had literally bumped into me as we both reached for the top copy of the new John Grisham novel. I'm not a big fan, but Jim is. Anyway, when our hands touched, we'd both laughed out an "Excuse me," and turned to face one another.

"Molly," I'd said, genuinely happy to see her. "How have you been?"

She had smiled at first and squealed out, "Blair."

By the time my name had left her lips though, she'd turned to ice. I guess it had taken a second for her to remember that in the world of Academia, Blair Sandburg was a pariah.

With a prissy sniff and nod, she'd turned her back to me. I had stood there doing my best carp-out-of-water impression as she'd walked away.

I'd wondered at the time why this dissertation crap still had the power to hurt me. The fact that it wasn't some semi-familiar face from campus snubbing me but Molly made it so much worse.

Years ago she and I had talked for hours upon hours. We'd snuck into my office for quick make out sessions between classes. There hadn't been an exhibit on campus or at the Cascade Museum that she and I hadn't strolled through hand-in-hand. I couldn't count the number of mornings we'd awoken tangled up together in her apartment.

Molly should have known me better. At the very least she should have given me the benefit of the doubt. She hadn't.

The temptation to run after her, to make her see I was the same guy she used to email ten times a day, nearly got to me.

My feet had actually started after her before my brain kicked in. What would I say to her? In truth, I wasn't the same guy she'd once known. No longer was Blair Sandburg a wide-eyed graduate student or a world traveler or, fuck, even a practicing heterosexual.

Jesus, I'd changed everything, rearranged not only my life but the whole space my head was in to stay with Jim.

A ninety-year-old man has more spring in his step than I had as I walked into the loft that evening.

Then I saw him, head propped in his left hand, sitting on the edge of the sofa. He looked so damned weary and so damned beautiful as he raised his eyes to mine.

"Hey, Chief."

"Hey, Jim," I said as I lowered myself next to him. "You got a headache, man?"

"Little one," he admitted.

I scooted down the sofa and motioned for him to lay on his back with his head in my lap. "You take anything for it?" I asked as I began to rub small, soothing circles on his temples.

"Nah." He gave me a grin big enough to frame his mouth and eyes in crinkles. "I knew you'd be home soon and you get rid of my headaches quicker than anything else."

As I slowly, carefully massaged the pain and tension out of him, I realized whatever anyone else believed about me didn't really matter in the grand scheme. I wasn't an awkward adolescent looking for acceptance. I was a man. I knew that truth about myself.

It still stung a little, yeah, but I let my soul slip into the secret oasis Jim and I shared and it was enough.

"I picked up Chinese," he said without opening his eyes.

"Good." I kept steady pressure going at his temples.

"I already stuck it in the 'fridge."

"I can heat it up for us now if you're hungry, Jim."

He turned over and started to nuzzle my suddenly alert cock. The warmth of his breath seeped through my jeans.

"Uh, Jim? Your headache?"

"All gone," he answered, unzipping my pants.

"Dinner?"

"This first," he insisted, running teeth and tongue over the base of my erection. "Dinner later."

I was no fool. I gleefully surrendered.

Much later that night, I'd spread an old Army blanket in front of the fireplace and urged Jim to lay down. I proceeded to teach him Lo Mein and Moo Shu Pork are best eaten cold and off the fingers of your lover.

I never did talk him into going to the Ethiopian restaurant but from then on, he'd sit on our floor and eat without utensils any time I asked him to.

Looking back, as I let myself be comforted by his body, his strength, his very presence, I'd totally forgotten, or perhaps I'd chosen to forget, the fact that Molly hadn't been the only close friend who hadn't believed in me when the Sentinel shit hit the fan.

No, at the time of the worst emotional upheaval and trauma I'd experienced up to that point in my life, someone else very important had thought the worst of me. Someone who should have known better. Someone who had lived with me, laughed with me, worked with me.

Yeah, Jim Ellison hadn't had any faith in me either. I didn't want to think about it, didn't want to acknowledge it, so I buried it.

I was willing to forgive Jim anything. Even if he hadn't apologized. He didn't want to talk about it, okay, we didn't talk about it.

We were lovers so I supposed all our baggage from the past was moot, meaningless.

The pool of strength and peace and devotion was so deep, so wide, just so fucking awesomely vast, I thought it would last forever. I thought we would last forever.

I was wrong.

Ever notice the words people use to talk about romantic love? He was crazy about her. They were head-over-heels in love. She was nuts about him. Blair completely lost his head over Jim.

Yeah, it appears everyone who's on the outside views the love situation totally differently, and no doubt with a clearer eye, than the poor suckers involved.

A person caught up in the grips of love, the all-consuming fire of love, sees himself living in paradise. It's a fool's paradise at best.

Everyone else, though, they call love as they see it, as it really is. Insanity. Pure, fucking insanity.

I was so crazy about Jim, so head-over-heels about him, so nuts about him, so damned out of head about him, I couldn't conceive of the possibility he might not feel the same.

Our society perpetuates this huge lie that love is something scarce and rare and that's why so few of us find it. So untrue.

The problem isn't love's scarcity or rarity. The problem is love is all around us.

We're drenched in the stuff.

Whether one chooses to believe in God or the goddesses or the Big Bang, the truth is some creator fashioned this universe with a tremendous amount of care, a superb eye for detail and a vast amount of love.

It's in the air we breathe, the vast wilderness, the night sky, the children who grow up around us. I'm not blind. I know there is grief and pain and sorrow in the world. I've had a taste of those myself.

I'm saying every human has the potential to love and be loved. It's part of us. It's bred into our very blood and bone.

Mankind has crafted civilization around love. Since the dawn of our existence we've immortalized love in everything from music to literature to sculpture.

Over the ages, humans have fought and died in love's name. Hell, we've considered death better, nobler, if it came about because of love. Man has suffered in solitude for love and celebrated holidays in its honor.

Love. We're so damn drenched in love we've lost sight of it.

We humans are perverse creatures.

Love, the very thing we search for, is so much a part of our everyday lives we don't recognize it when we see it.

We're so steeped in it, so saturated with it, we've cheapened it. We've forgotten how to treasure it, how to savor it.

Not only has the myth that love is rare prevailed, so has the fable that love is some strong, sweeping, unbreakable thing.

Maybe it eventually becomes some damned near irresistible bond somewhere down the road, after being tried by fire and time, but from what I've witnessed, love is pretty fragile. It can melt away like spun sugar candy left in the sun.

I think most of the love that could root and grow strong in this world dies because it's never realized and never given a chance.

How many times have we looked back in regret and viewed what could have been? How many times has easily available sex been substituted for the struggle and hard work needed to keep love alive? How often has cowardice and the fear of losing face let love and the chance for real happiness be defeated?

Love, despite what the troubadours have been shoving down gullible throats for generations, isn't always pretty and it isn't always easy. If my limited exposure to romantic love has taught me anything, it's that love is often harsh and raw and hurts more than it soothes.

Love is by far the sharpest double-edged sword in the universe.

This particular truth was driven home to me by Jim, the afternoon he used that sword to cleave my heart in two.

Like every other fool in love, I was going about my life thinking everything was cool. Jim and I were getting along great, the sex was astronomical and showed no signs of diminishing, and all was calm at the PD.

I'd been heading down to Dan Wolf's office with a couple of questions when I spotted an old student of mine, Donna Knoll, coming toward me.

It had only been a couple of weeks since Molly had given me the direct cut and although I'd convinced myself I was okay, seeing the recognition in Donna's eyes gave me pause. I'd braced myself for the emotional punch.

My kamikaze press conference hadn't been so long ago that folks at the station had forgotten. No, it was still fresh in their minds and here came someone new to stir it all up again.

Some of my coworkers believed I was a fraud. Some believed I was a decent guy who'd gotten a raw deal. Most didn't know what to believe. Whatever their take on me was though, they kept it quiet, or at least discussed me out of the hearing range of Major Crimes. I'd grown to appreciate that.

Now, with Donna Knoll obviously working at the PD, I was fucked. She'd snub me to my face, talk about me behind my back and the rumor mill would start grinding my bones again.

I knew I could handle it. It would probably be even easier this time around because I had Jim and our friends on my side. The thing was, I didn't want to deal with it a second time.

The whispering, the looks, the weirdness between me and my fellow officers. Eventually, it would die down again but, damn it, I was happy now. Starting at ground zero, trying to earn back the respect of my colleagues, man, I just couldn't go there again.

Dread rising in my gut, I waited in the hallway as Donna walked toward me.

"Oh, my God. Mister Sandburg," she cried, giving me a quick hug. "Wow. I heard you worked here. Remember me?"

It took me a second to process she was actually thrilled to see me. "Uh, yeah. Donna Knoll, right?"

"Right. I was in your Anthro 101 class."

"I remember." Still a bit tense, wondering if I was reading her correctly, I asked, "So, how have you been?"

"Great. Really great." She kind of flipped her blonde hair at me. I almost laughed. She wasn't snubbing me, she was flirting with me. I could totally deal with this familiar territory.

"How long have you been working at the PD, Donna?"

"I'm interning, Mister Sandburg. I'll be attached to forensics till the end of next semester." She was batting her eyelashes at me.

"Well," I said, "you'll learn a lot here. The department is one of the best in the country. And please, call me Blair now, okay?"

"Okay, Blair," she giggled. Donna was probably five years younger than me but she seemed like a kid. I found her not-so-discreet overtures kind of cute.

Relief filled me. Donna would be an ally, not an enemy.

Of course, I was flattered, too. I was totally devoted to Jim and would never cheat on him, but I was enough of a guy to let some meaningless flirting with a pretty girl bloat my ego. A little.

It was kind of cool she was interested in forensic anthropology. I'd just attended a seminar in Seattle about the possible use of interdisciplinary fields in police evidence gathering. She gave me a card with her phone number and email address on it.

I knew I'd be talking to her at the station and maybe emailing her because I really was interested in her internship, but I wasn't going to call. She was obviously interested in something a little more than a student/mentor relationship and I was taken.

"Sandburg." Jim walked to us from the elevator.

Jesus, just the sound of his voice started my hormones brewing. We kept things quiet in public. It was no one else's business we were together. Still, I couldn't help the excitement I felt when he turned his attention on me.

My academic defense? Scientifically speaking, we were chemically tuned to one another. His body called to me, mine to his. So, sure my heart beat faster and my nostrils flared and my skin flushed. My physical self was preparing to do the deed.

My own explanation? I was in love with him. For the first time in my life I understood why girls giggled and boys preened and Hallmark made a fortune. I totally got it.

He'd brought down a folder I'd forgotten on my desk. I didn't even attempt to stop the big, goofy grin that was spreading on my face as I introduced him to Donna.

I was a little embarrassed when Donna mentioned I'd talked about Jim all the time while I taught class. Anyone with gaydar worth a shit must have known I wanted him way back then.

When I told Donna goodbye, she gave me a throaty, "Call me, Blair."

I nearly cracked up. Trade in a jaguar for a kitten? Not hardly.

Deciding I'd wasted enough time out of the office already, Jim and I climbed into the empty elevator. Despite the surveillance camera mounted in the corner of the car, I wanted to throw him against the wall and suck on his face for a minute. He brought my folder to me. Big tough detective Jim could be so fucking sweet sometimes.

Little did I know, my so fucking sweet Jim was picking up the sword of love, preparing to chop me and my delusions down to size.

"So," Jim said, "are you going to call her?"

Huh? "Am I going to call her?"

"Yeah, you know, Chief, call her. For a date."

I'm not certain how long I stood there, trying to make sense of what he'd said to me.

"Do you care if I call her?" I wanted to shut up. I wanted him to shut up, but I had to know exactly what he meant. That's when the sharp edge of his sword grazed me.

"You're a big boy," he smiled. "You're free to do what you want to do."

The bastard. Free? My life, my heart, my damned soul were so wrapped up inside him I wasn't sure I'd ever be free.

I pressed him, praying I was being an idiot, praying he was kidding, praying this just wasn't going down.

Refusing to believe Jim was telling me to take another person out and, eventually, to bed, I bound up the wound he'd inflicted and tried again.

"I see," I said. "So, we're not exclusive."

"Exclusive?" He said it so stupidly, as though he'd never even considered the possibility he and I were supposed to be monogamous. I wanted to slug him.

"Yeah, man," I continued. "You and I are not exclusive?"

I realized, standing in the elevator, suspended in the air, heart in my hands, this is what my mom had cleverly avoided all those years. God knows she'd warned me. I hadn't listened well enough.

Defenseless as an infant, my future and fate in someone else's control, I waited for the killing blow. Still foolish, still dreaming Jim would prove my sudden fears unfounded, I waited.

I'd allowed myself to become so swept up in Jim that a single moment in time, this moment in time, had the power to exalt me or humble me.

With the perspective of six months gone by, I think the most pathetic thing of all that day, the thing I'm most ashamed of, was the thick cord of hope that ran through me right then. He'd hurt me so deeply before, he'd refused to believe in me before, he'd withheld his trust and confidence from me before, and yet, still I'd had hope.

He came in for the slaughter. "No," he said, renting my flesh and my dreams, "I mean, I never thought so."

The air silently whooshed out of me, totally deflating me. Releasing the door hold button I hadn't even known I was pressing, I nodded. "Okay then."

What else could I say?

Okay then.

What else was there to say?

While he was the most important person in my life, I, apparently was the most convenient person in his. I was his roommate, his best friend, his partner, his confidant, and his own personal medicine man. Why not his lover, too?

I picked his bed linen and detergent, cooked his meals, tended to him when he was ill, laughed with him when he was happy, commiserated with him when he was sad, why wouldn't I suck his dick and let him fuck me?

Perfectly natural progression in Jim's world, right? It made sense to a frightening degree. I was there and willing to fill so many roles for him. What was one more?

To be honest, he'd never hinted our sexual relationship was more than an outgrowth of our friendship. I was the one who'd foolishly colored it up with hearts and flowers.

I wanted to be angry with him as we finished our shift that afternoon. Maybe someday I will be. From then until now, though, I've only been able to drudge up sorrow and regret.

Jim. Jesus, even now I'm surprised at the depth of my grief when I think of him.

Reading between the lines, listening to the subtext of his words, extrapolating the whole truth from the scraps presented, I'd done it all and more during the five years I orbited Jim. I imagined I was some kind of expert on him. As if I alone possessed the Rosetta Stone needed to translate what Jim said and did into what Jim felt and meant.

How could anyone blessed with as much intelligence and education as I have remain such a dolt?

Is it the nature of love to be blind or are those in love just so desperately in the grasp of denial that they refuse to see? I've argued both sides of the question with myself numerous times over the past months.

Had I been a complete moron or had I merely misread the signs? When I'd reshuffled the deck fate had dealt me, when I'd reprocessed our relationship following Simon's revelation, could I really have fallen so far from the mark?

Okay, Jim didn't much go for expressing his touchy-feely emotions. This particular tidbit had been made clear years ago and I heard that. Sure, I would have preferred to actually have had us say the words aloud. I like words, but if Jim hadn't been ready or willing, I was ready and willing to live within his comfort zone.

Maybe I'm just a liar. I lied to myself. I mean, he'd shown me he loved me, right? From big things like sharing his body and bed with me, to little things like buying the kind of breakfast cereal I like or sitting next to me on a Sunday afternoon watching yet another episode of Ancient Secrets Revealed on PBS.

And huge displays of affection like standing up to Simon for me all those years ago.

Wasn't that love?

All the things I did for Jim, from living to dying to living again, from observing to researching to implementing, from kissing to touching to comforting, wasn't that love?

I'm every bit as confused about the damn subject as I was two weeks after Jim told me to date Donna.

For two weeks, I'd pretended, or attempted to pretend, nothing had changed. Everything had changed.

The joy, the peace, the oasis I'd imagined we'd been building between us vanished. It had been, I realized, just a mirage. Like a man crazed with thirst in the desert might construct an illusion of a lush reservoir of water, so had I, crazed for Jim, constructed an illusion of a great romantic love.

I was every bit as shocked as the desert traveler would be to discover nothing but dreams and wasteland existed in reality.

Jim and I still had sex at every opportunity. It was still richly wicked and erotic, but the peace I'd once experienced, the security I'd grown to depend on, had dried up in the heat of Jim's indifference.

For two weeks I tried as hard as I knew how to come to a decision. I'm humiliated as I think about how close I came to settling for whatever Jim was capable of giving me.

In the end, we both knew it wasn't enough.

Although Jim Ellison hadn't ever loved me, for a while I'd believed he did. For a time, erroneously as it was, I'd experienced what it was to be completely devoted to someone.

I knew what it was to trust another person, to tell him silly, secret stories from childhood. I knew what it was to lay in someone's arms as he slept and savor each breath he drew.

I knew what it was to listen with anticipation for someone's footsteps in the hallway and thrill to the sound of his key scraping in the lock. I knew the pleasure of my name being gently huffed over the phone line when we were apart.

I knew about the cryptic glances and half-smiles lovers shared. I knew how it was to believe we would always be together, to have faith no matter how much pain, how much suffering life threw at us, at the end of it all, there we'd be. Together.

I'd sampled the delicious smugness lovers share. The heady feeling the two of you are somehow set apart and above the rest of world. I'd lived the myth that lovers are untouchable and superior.

I'd had it all. At least, I'd thought I had it all and I wasn't willing to settle for less again.

It's pretty amusing in a twisted way. I was thirty years old before I even had a clue something as awe inspiring, as quicksilver as love existed. Now, I couldn't imagine trying to live the rest of my life without it.

Like a blind man who had suddenly been gifted with sight, I, too, had finally experienced the world in all its glory. How can anyone truly appreciate the glint of sunlight on the water or the blackness of midnight or the blaze of red in the twilight, unless he is lucky enough to have seen it with his own eyes? Without vision, a man only has the diluted translation of someone else's description.

That's how it was for me. Life had unexpectedly been revealed to me in all the hues and harmonies and possibilities love brings. I couldn't go back to the way it was. I wouldn't.

And I loved Jim enough to want him to have the same thing.

Before I let myself continue to come off like some totally noble dick, let me add that it hadn't escaped my notice if Jim was looking for me to supplement my sex life, maybe he'd been looking to supplement his own. I refused to be party to that.

I couldn't bring myself to watch him turn his charm and attention on someone else now that I'd had it all to myself. How many nights would I sleep alone while he slept with another? Would he expect me to bundle up his date clothes, reeking of perfume and lipstick stained, with our other dry cleaning? Would I start disappearing on nights he wanted to bring his dates into the loft?

And what if one day he found love? Would I be able to smile and wish him luck as I boxed my things and made way for his next lover? Would invitations from Mr. and Mrs. Ellison start hitting my new mailbox with alarming regularity as holidays, births, baptisms and graduations came along?

Naomi had been so fucking right to get out before it got serious. I'd waited too long.

So, I began to look for a way out. I knew I couldn't stay in Cascade. Jim was like some magnetic force I just wasn't able to resist. As long as I was anywhere near him, I'd be at his beck and call.

Getting up from the sofa, I start to pace the length of my living room. This Seattle apartment is so different from the loft. Brand new, ultra modern and boxy. Jim had helped me pick it out.

"This place is perfect, Chief," he'd said the weekend we'd moved my stuff from Cascade.

"You think so?" I'd asked, knowing every time I closed my eyes to sleep here, I'd remember us fucking, fast and furious, on the sky blue carpet.

"Sure. It's got a dishwasher, central heat and air," he'd replied as he put the last carton on the floor. "It's got everything."

"Yeah," I'd said. It wasn't true. It didn't have what I needed most--him.

I'd never meant to end up in Seattle. I'd attended a seminar here back when I was pretending Jim and I were moving toward forever. Anyway, while I was at the conference, Ron Diaz, the department head of forensics at the Seattle PD had offered me a chance to participate in a study the University of Washington was going to run on evidence gathering.

I'll admit I'd been thrilled to have someone want me for my skills as an anthropologist. Of course, I'd been deep in the throes of love then and could barely manage a week away from Jim, let alone the six months the study required. Without regret, I had turned Ron down.

After the Donna thing, though, I rethought the offer. Maybe it had been a sign. Nothing happens without a reason, right? I'd called Ron then spent a couple of weeks waiting and wavering.

Don't think it was easy for me. Jesus, seeing Jim every day, every night, at home, at work, in my goddamned dreams was anything but easy. Stay, go, stay, go. I thought about it all the time.

All I really wanted to do, all I would have probably done just a year ago, was gloss over the elevator conversation as though it had never happened. Hey, I can repress and sublimate as well as the next guy when necessary.

Seriously, I had it good in Cascade. For fourteen years it had been my place in the universe. It had been the scene of my greatest triumph and my most dismal failures. Since the day I'd arrived in Rainier as a sixteen year old freshman, this place had been my version of a hometown.

For nine years, I'd had friends, roots, a career, a home of my own. Over the last five, though, I'd let Jim's life overshadow, overtake the one I'd built. I'm not a martyr. I allowed the metamorphosis because I wanted it. I wanted to be with him; that was my choice, my priority and nothing seemed too big or too small to sacrifice to that end.

Everything was different after that afternoon in the elevator.

A less dramatic break might have made more sense, like keeping the job I loved in Major Crimes and changing my address. I was already making excuses to spend less time with Jim. No more shared rides to the station or shooting hoops after work.

I had to face the truth. It was time to grow up. Time to let us both go free.

Ever consider how paper, innocuous, bland paper, can change a life? Paper. Mere bleached pulp and fiber, pressed and dried and cut, carries the power to grab an existence and hurl it in a totally different direction.

The standardized tests I took in fifth grade opened Naomi's eyes to the possibility my brain was being vastly underused. So came the end of sliding and slacking in school and the beginning of my trot on the fast track of education.

A few faxed pages from a medical chart brought me face-to-face with a Sentinel and began to turn my journey away from the path of academia.

The forwarded pixels of a dissertation, pixels being the most modern equivalent of paper and ink, effectively destroyed my university career and the fall out nearly killed Simon and Megan.

Jesus. Just paper.

It's sort of strange, really, because for most of my life paper had been my refuge, my constant companion. Books filled with paper had educated me, liberated me, and comforted me. I'd filled reams of paper myself with homework assignments, research papers and journals. It seemed so harmless.

A piece of paper from Ron Diaz forced my hand. A piece of paper opened the door that would lead me away from the pain and disappointment my life had turned into.

Come, Blair, Ron's letter had urged. Come for the study, stay in Seattle. Come.

As I stood in the loft that evening, letter in hand, Jim so big and beautiful just a few feet away, I was tempted to lie. I could see the panic in Jim's eyes. He didn't know what was written on the sheet of paper I was holding, but he understood something was up.

Early in our association I'd chided him that, for having hyperactive senses, he was dense when it came to relationships. He's a guy. We're kind of slow in that department. But there was no way he could have missed the shift between us.

As I stood in the loft that evening, letter in hand, my now-or-never staring me in the face, I considered telling Jim an untruth. Fabrication was another lesson I'd gotten courtesy of Naomi. Weaving spur-of-the-moment, credible tales was a honed skill by the time I could string words together to make sentences.

I knew if I told Jim the letter was just a chatty note from Ron about the forensic seminar, he'd choose to believe me. No harm, no foul, right?

If I just held my fucking counsel, I could at least have proximity. I could stay with him, keep him in my life. I could continue to look at him, to hear his voice.

I remember thinking, if I just kept my damn mouth shut, I could push him down on the sofa, pull his clothes off and fuck him until the sun came up. He'd let me. Hell, he wanted me to.

If I just kept pretending everything was cool between us, I could wake up tomorrow morning sprawled on top of him. I could wake up with the silky heat of his body underneath me and the tangy scent of his flesh filling my head. I could wake up with the satisfying ache of orgasm filtering through my veins.

I'd have proximity, but not the love, not the intimacy.

If I lied to Jim in what should be my moment of truth, we could spend all night filling each other and I'd still wake up empty.

Proximity without intimacy. Isn't that one of the levels of hell?

Naomi wouldn't have fallen in love. I did. And because her deeper emotions would not have been engaged, she'd have ridden this particular train to the end of the line. I couldn't.

"Something you need to tell me, Chief?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answered, then walked to look out the glass doors leading out to the balcony. I'd made my choice. Now, it was time to be man enough to accept the consequences. It was time to be man enough to tell Jim.

As I watched the city lights flicker in the distance, my eyes dry, my chest tight and aching, I was, I realized, alone again. I guess I had been all along.

"Chief?" His voice sounded strong. He was strong. I could do this and we'd both live through it.

So, I started talking. I told him about Ron and the project. I told him how I'd turned it down in the beginning, but was now accepting it. I told him I was leaving and I wasn't coming back.

When I finally turned to look into his eyes, I nearly chickened out. I nearly let a job offer, a better career and a chance to work in anthropology, become, in his mind, the reason for my departure. I almost let us both off the hook. Fuck. I owed us both more than that.

The truth will set you free, right?

Naomi told me once, "Make a lover hate you a little when you go. It's easier on them. The tears fall, the time passes, the pain fades, then they go on."

I couldn't say goodbye to Jim the way I'd watched her say goodbye to her various boyfriends.

Once I'd decided to be mostly honest with Jim, I could have made him hate me. My phrasing, my version of the truth could have destroyed me in his eyes and made a lie of everything we'd shared.

Looking back, it probably would have been easier. Had I lashed out at him, we wouldn't have had to spend the next two weeks pretending we were just friends who fucked. He could have been angry and sullen and I could have been scarce and withdrawn.

Yeah, it would have been kinder to burn up whatever affection Jim held for me and replaced it with bitterness, but I just couldn't.

Part of it was I didn't want to hurt him anymore than I had to. I'm not an idiot. He might not have been in love with me, but he thought he needed me. I was his friend, his partner. God knows Jim had plenty of issues with roots leading directly to his perception of abandonment. I wanted to spare him unnecessary pain.

The biggest part of it, though, had nothing to do with Jim's pain and everything to do with mine. I loved him. I wanted him to love me. Barring that, I wanted him to look back at me with fondness. It was literally impossible for me to purposely give up the tiny corner of his memory and heart our years together held.

If I ended it gently, then maybe when Joel or Simon reminisced about some dumb ass stunt I'd pulled back-in-the-day, Jim would flash that fabulous toothy grin of his and mean it. Maybe when he used his senses, he'd be thankful for the day I'd barged in at the hospital and tricked him into coming to my office. Maybe he'd hear my voice in his head, advising him to take a deep breath, relax and concentrate.

Maybe, if I backed away carefully, he'd think of me and smile. Maybe when he sat in the truck, sometimes he'd recall us talking and laughing together as we drove across town. Maybe when he watched a Jags game, he'd remember the hours we'd coached from the sidelines, arguing over plays and next season's line-up.

If I ended this with a flicker rather than an explosion, maybe he'd wish there could have been more. Maybe at night he'd wake up and still reach for me. Maybe he'd wish we had one more day together. Or one more fuck on the sofa, one more weekend camping, one more hot blow job at the breakfast table, one more Friday night fight over the last tuna roll and whose turn it was to clean-up. Maybe, like me, he'd wish there could be one more case, one more adventure, one more kiss, one more time to make things right.

If I ended our time together with the dignity Jim needed rather than the dramatics Naomi preferred, maybe I'd be able to hold myself together long enough to leave.

I sat down, faced him and told him a partial truth. The part I could handle telling. The part he could handle hearing.

"Jim, I think me moving to Seattle is a good idea." He didn't disagree, so I continued. "And you've got your senses in line and under control." Again, he didn't protest.

He was tough enough to take it, I reminded myself and plunged on. "Besides, this thing between us," I wasn't sure what to call it, "isn't working out. I mean, you've been great, the whole thing has been great. I wouldn't have traded it for the world." I had to stop for a moment. I was swallowing back tears and trying hard not let him know.

Jim looked so wonderful sitting there on the sofa. He was nodding slightly, his mouth soft and relaxed, his eyes calm and unafraid.

He was strong. Fuck, I knew that. He'd been my strength so many times.

I took another stab at it.

"We both want different things out of a relationship." I wanted him to know I wasn't angry he didn't love me. "We won't find what we need as long as we're together." I wanted him to know I needed him to understand it was all right for him to be happy. "We both deserve more than this." I wanted him to know he wasn't supposed to feel guilt; I'd go on.

I mumbled a few other things about him being my best friend and how thankful I was for everything he'd done for me, but I can't recall exactly what I said to save Naomi's life. I just needed that part to be done so my real pain could begin.

I climbed into his arms and made love with him till the morning. There was so much agony in me, so much bitter desperation, I'm surprised Jim couldn't taste it weeping out of my skin.

With the sharper perception of a six-month separation, I've come to the conclusion I'm a total asshole. See, I might not have wanted him to hurt because of me but I sure as hell wanted him to hurt for me.

I wanted him to miss me. I wanted him to still want me.

Long after he'd given up the ghost and fallen asleep that horrible night, I watched him and listened to him. For a while, this proud, private, desirable man had shared himself with me and that was something worth appreciating and remembering. No matter how it had turned out.

I stroked the smooth skin at his waist and, still deep in slumber, he moved into my touch and breathed my name aloud. I closed my eyes and pretended that his unconscious act hadn't hurt.

Jim trusted me. I've never quite gotten over the wonder of that. In the beginning I certainly hadn't merited it. I decided I would now. I'd make this transition as smooth as possible. No hysterics, no demands, no shouting, no eliciting promises he wouldn't want to keep.

In an instant, the next two weeks were gone. He helped me find my apartment and move my stuff and smooth over my two-week notice with Simon, proving again what a lucky bastard I was to have counted him as my friend.

The last time I saw Jim was the morning I left Cascade for good. He was standing in our kitchen, barefooted, wearing his blue robe. Handing me a thermos of coffee, he asked me to drive carefully. He had this look on his face that made me think of Naomi on my first day of school. Kind of like, where did all the time go? Kind of like he knew I could handle this on my own, but he'd worry anyway. Kind of like, what would he do with the rest of his time now that I would be gone.

Kissing him goodbye was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. The press conference was small potatoes in comparison. This was the last time I'd ever have the right to kiss him like this, all licking and sucking and biting with my body pushed flush against him. Like I belonged to him. Like he belonged to me.

I landed on my feet in Seattle. The PD here has been great. It's so different than Cascade, where I'd struggled to make a place for myself and garner some acceptance. The Seattle cops see me as an expert, the venerated anthropologist.

By the end of the first month, I'd proven myself at work, made several friends and been given a handful of invitations, some blatant, for a little companionship. My job is good, my apartment is cool, my social life is full. Still, I feel cheated.

Jim and I talked on the phone in the beginning. It just got to be too fucking hard for me. Hearing his voice, having it curl up in my ear and burrow down into my heart, made my loss fresh every time we spoke.

It didn't take long before my good intentions to stay friends disappeared. When our number flashed on the caller ID, I didn't pick up. He stopped calling.

I'm not going to lie and say I've spent the last six months languishing in a pool of pain. I haven't exactly been lying in bed feeling sorry for myself. I've been busy living my life.

Sometimes I think I was totally full of shit imagining I was so damned in love with Jim. Sometimes, I wonder why I thought I couldn't deal with the idea of him being with another lover. Sometimes, when I'm out with friends or working late or just flaking out at my place watching the Mariners on TV, I can't recall why it was such a big deal for me to get the hell out of Cascade.

Yeah, that's how I think most of the time. Naomi was big on the life goes on, don't look back thing. I'd spent my first twenty-six years subscribing to her philosophy. It's natural to fall back on old patterns of behavior.

Love can ambush a man though. I think I'm safe, my heart is free and clear, then the ambush comes and I know miles and time don't guarantee release.

I'll be sitting at my desk, head deep in a case. A previously hidden clue will leap out at me and I'll turn to tell Jim. Only Jim isn't there. On my left, where Jim should be, stands a cream-colored partition. A wave of grief steals my breath every time it happens.

Sometimes, when I'm walking down the crowded Seattle streets, I'll catch a glimpse of something, a jacket, a silhouette, a Ford pickup, and even though I know it couldn't possibly be Jim, for just a moment, my heart will flutter in my chest and my hope will rise. Then reality strikes, the moment passes and my heart and my hope are slam-dunked into my stomach. The grief nearly drives me to the ground every time it happens.

There are mornings, just as I'm waking up, I'll forget I don't live in the loft anymore. I swear I can feel the warmth of Jim's breath on my skin and the dip of the mattress where he sleeps just behind me. I'll roll over to touch him and discover I'm alone. The grief is staggering every time it happens.

And that's when I remember.

I remember how important he was to me. No, how important he is to me.

I remember the hours we spent together talking or enjoying the silence spread between us. I remember the scathing arguments and the raucous laughter. I remember moaning during lightening bolt orgasms and napping during afterglows. I remember how he could simultaneously frustrate and excite me. I remember how much I miss him.

I remember how much I love him.

The moment passes, my attention is diverted, the painful memories recede. I'm on a steady, even keel again, life goes on and I don't look back. Until the next time.

This time, the next time came in the guise of Jim's letter.

I finish my water, set the bottle on the coffee table and pick up the envelope.

If he was strong enough to write to me after I'd left him then basically ignored him, I should have enough balls to read the fucking thing.

Instead, I rip it in two and drop it on the carpet.

See, I've made my decision and it doesn't matter what the letter says. Whether Jim is letting me know everything is fine or he's seeing someone else or he wants me to come home, it doesn't matter. It doesn't effect what I'm going to do.

Naomi taught me to cut my losses. Now, probably too late and with no basis in fact, I think I might have cut my losses far too soon.

I've learned a thing or two on my own. Like love's not a fairy tale or a panacea with a guaranteed happily-ever-after. Like love can come when one least expects it or even when one least wants it, but still it comes. Like maybe it's not enough to go with the flow and use your assets and let people see what they want to see and look for the best in others and play the angles. Like maybe pen and paper don't really have the power to change a life. Like sometimes a person has to remember everything he's learned and forget everything he's been taught so he can take a stand, a chance on what really matters.

Before I let Jim shatter what is left of us or pretend there never was an us or even gives me hope again, I'm going to do what I should have done six months ago. I'm going to give us a fighting chance.

No matter what he's written in that damned letter, Jim has made the first move. It's more than I expected. Now, it's my turn.

I glance at the clock. Nine twenty-seven on a Friday night. He's probably at home. I pick up the phone. I put it down.

This warrants a personal, face-to-face discussion.

By midnight tonight, I realize as I pack an overnight bag, I could be shooting the breeze with Jim or yelling at him or fucking him right into the floorboards. No matter what we are doing however, by midnight tonight Jim Ellison will know I'm in love with him.

No more near misses for me. I'm not spending one more day of my life pondering what could have been. If he blows me off, okay. I know I can pick myself up and go on.

Ah, but what if I love you is just what he wants to hear? What if it opens a world of possibilities for us?

As I lock the front door behind me and start down the hallway, I smile.

One way or another, by midnight I'll know.

 

Fin


End file.
